They Quit…but Never Leave!

He is the guy that does just enough not to get fired. Perhaps he used to be motivated, maybe even a top performer at one point in time. But now he just can’t be bothered. He rarely has ideas and is usually only passionate about not changing (anything) and making sure he is not inconvenienced with the job. Mostly, they have quit without leaving the job. How do managers deal with these people? What kinds of things can you do to help bring them back? Or perhaps get them actually to leave?

Engage and inspire them. A leader needs to understand their people. What drives them and makes them want to work hard? It sounds like standard advice, but to be honest, you probably don’t have the capacity to understand and engage all of your people on an individual level enough to engage and inspire them. What you do have time for is some of them. The focus should be on your high performers and those you feel you can move into the high performing category. Those people like the guy described above should not be the main priority. As the leader/manager, you should be removing obstacles from your team. It is in this capacity that you will need to deal with the poor performers.

Accountability is key. Opportunity is also key. Mostly we describe opportunity as the opportunity for success, but there is an equal chance for failure at every opportunity. When an employee has quit, we need to engage and see if we can get them back on the team and performing at a high level. If you can’t, give them opportunities. Then hold them accountable when they don’t perform to the standard. You have to give them a final chance to show what they can do. This, of course, assumes that you have effectively communicated to them about their performance and what the standard is.

What if you don’t have the authority to fire? This certainly complicates things, but only means you now have to convince the person or persons who have firing authority to take action. This is normally pretty simple. Document the performance along with any failures to meet standards, and before long the HR department or other supervisors/managers will have to take action. A big point to include when dealing with this situation is that having employees like this can be detrimental to the culture of the organization, especially if these employees are charismatic and influential.